Washington -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Computer technicians have recovered about 22 million Bush administration e-mails that the Bush White House had said were missing , two watchdog groups that sued over the documents announced Monday .

The e-mails date from 2003 to 2005 , and had been `` mislabeled and effectively lost , '' according to the National Security Archive , a research group based at George Washington University . But Melanie Sloan , executive director of the liberal-leaning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington , said it could be years before most of the e-mails are made public .

`` The e-mails themselves are not what we 're getting , '' Sloan said .

Documents related to the handling of e-mail under the Bush administration and subsequent information regarding how White House e-mails are currently archived will be released under a settlement with the Obama administration , which inherited a lawsuit the groups filed in 2007 . But the National Archives must sort out which documents are covered by the Freedom of Information Act and which ones fall under the Presidential Records Act , which means they could be withheld for five to 10 years after the Bush administration left office in January , Sloan said .

`` The National Archives will sort this out , '' she said .

The e-mail controversy dates back to the Bush administration 's 2006 firing of the top federal prosecutors in nine cities . After congressional committees demanded the administration produce documents related to the firings , the White House said millions of e-mails might have been lost from its servers . Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive sued over the issue in 2007 , arguing the Bush administration violated federal laws that require presidential records to be preserved .

Court records have shown that the Bush administration knew about the e-mail problems as far back as 2005 and did nothing to fix them , Sloan said .

`` They never made an effort to restore them , '' she said .

But Scott Stanzel , a former deputy press secretary in the Bush White House , said the group `` has consistently tried to create a spooky conspiracy out of standard IT issues . ''

`` We always indicated that there is an e-mail archiving system and a disaster recovery system , '' Stanzel said . `` We also indicated that e-mails not properly archived could be found on disaster recovery tapes . There is a big , big difference between something not being properly archived and it being ` lost ' or ` missing , ' as CREW would say . ''

Monday 's settlement allows for 94 days of e-mail traffic , scattered between January 2003 to April 2005 , to be restored from backup tapes . Of those 94 days , 40 were picked by statistical sample ; another 21 days were suggested by the White House ; and the groups that filed suit picked 33 that seemed `` historically significant , '' from the months before the invasion of Iraq to the period when the firings of U.S. attorneys were being planned .

Also requested were several days surrounding the announcement that a criminal investigation was under way into the disclosure of then-CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson 's identity . That investigation led to the conviction of White House aide I. Lewis `` Scooter '' Libby on charges of perjury , obstruction of justice and lying to federal agents investigating the leak .

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington represented Wilson and her husband , former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson , in a lawsuit over her exposure , which they argued was in retaliation for his accusation that the Bush administration over-hyped the intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq . A federal judge dismissed the case on procedural grounds in 2007 , but Sloan said the missing e-mails raise the `` strong possibility '' that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald never received all the documents he requested during the leak investigation .

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White House had said that about 22 million Bush administration e-mails were missing

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E-mails involve Bush administration 's 2006 firing of top federal prosecutors

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White House said during congressional hearings they might have been lost

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Suing watchdog groups will settle lawsuit with the Obama administration